E3 2003: Onimusha Blade Warriors Update

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We have more details on the latest fighter from Capcom.

By Jeremy Dunham

At Capcom's E3 Producer Day, several more tidbits of information were released on Keiji Inafune's Power Stone-type fighter, Onimusha Blade Warriors. The most interesting of them all, however, could be the revelation that there will be several story-based elements scattered throughout the game. Though it's unknown whether or not Blade Warriors will bridge the several-year gap between Onimusha 2 and Onimusha 3, it will sport several minutes of pre-rendered cut scenes and various other story telling devices to move the action along.

The gameplay itself reminded us heavily of the Power Stone series with up to four players battling it out at once. Though the stages seem more confined than Power Stone's, they also seem to have more vertical layers than the Dreamcast franchise with structures that can go as high as three stories and span multiple planes. Each section is inspired by existing Onimusha locales and offer minor cases of destructible environments. Naturally each stage will have hundreds of pounds of special power-ups and bonuses, and players will be able to upgrade their character momentarily with invincibility options, speed boosts, and strength enhancements. There's supposed to be some kind of experience system implemented as well, though Producer Inafune didn't elaborate on that point.

One area that did see elaboration, though, was the importance of draining souls from your opponents. Identical to the upgrade powers used in the regular Onimusha franchise, the soul drain can be used to strengthen your character's special attack meter and possibly the health bar as well (that point wasn't made clear). Once the special attack meter is filled, players can unleash a super-powerful mega attack that does more damage than the usual hack and slashes, and will resemble the power combat moves from 1 and 2. Also cool is the fact that swords can clash and spark a struggle ala Soul Calibur and time limits and other such optional elements can be changed or altered in the text menus.

Unfortunately the mechanics of the game weren't thoroughly explained and we'll have to wait until we hit the show floor to try it out for ourselves. Luckily, we did manage to identify a few of the characters in the character select screen (of which, there appears to be 36) and they include some rather heavy hitters: Samanosuke Akechi, Jubei Yagyu, Kaede, Magoichi, Ekei, Kotaro, Nobunaga, Gogandantess, and several other enemies from throughout the series. There were new characters created specifically for the game as well, but their names and backgrounds were not released. One little tidbit that was mentioned however, is that Blade Warriors won't contain any blood. The reason? Inafune wants the game to be accessible to players of all ages.

We'll be back with more on Onimusha Blade Warriors later this week -- Hopefully with hands-on impressions, new videos, and other such goodies leading up to its late 2003 Japanese release. As always, we'll keep you posted.